


critical failure (you roll a one)

by windsprout



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dungeons & Dragons, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Moral of the Story: Don't Let Lance Near Alcohol, i can't believe that's a tag?, keith has no idea what the fuck he's doing, neither does the author, roll a crit keith, shiro is proud of his children, space gays get drunk... in space!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7474803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsprout/pseuds/windsprout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know, I can handle the space stuff,” Lance tells him, hands making an aborted gesture towards the window. The constellations blink in and out of view, thousands of stars like a blanket over the ship, and Keith flicks his gaze between the galaxy and the boy on the couch. “I trained for this. Sort of. Theoretically speaking. But magic? C’mon.”</p><p>“A druid,” Keith echoes, nodding in agreement, and it’s a testament to how much they’ve had to drink that Lance merely leans against his shoulder instead of attempting a witty comeback. “Roll a crit.”</p><p>or: keith & lance get very, very drunk. in space. and kiss. it's very romantic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	critical failure (you roll a one)

**Author's Note:**

> i used to play d&d. there is no excuse for this

It starts with Lance, a bottle, and: “I found Coran’s stash.”

It all goes downhill from there.

//

“You know, I can handle the space stuff,” Lance tells him, hands making an aborted gesture towards the window. The constellations blink in and out of view, thousands of stars like a blanket over the ship, and Keith flicks his gaze between the galaxy and the boy on the couch. “I trained for this. Sort of. Theoretically speaking. But magic? C’mon.”

“A druid,” Keith echoes, nodding in agreement, and it’s a testament to how much they’ve had to drink that Lance merely leans against his shoulder instead of attempting a witty comeback. “Roll a crit.”

Lance burps, kicks his feet up on the couch, and says, “What does that even mean, you giant nerd.”

Keith has half a mind to be offended, considering the only reason he knows Dungeons and Dragons at all is because Shiro taught him, but he swallows back the immediate response of _says the one who spent a year fighting me in his head_ and settles with, “If we roll a crit, we win.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Lance mutters, attempting to look up at Keith. It’s almost a success until he rolls off the couch in the process, ending up with his face pressed into the carpet, and Keith pitches forward and debates between offering a hand and joining him on the floor.

“How would you know?” he asks instead, sliding off the cushion and stretching his legs out in front of him. There’s an ache in the back of his knee from training earlier and a bruise over his ribcage where Shiro’s arm had struck a bit too hard, yet the alien liquid is doing a fantastic job of numbing him to pretty much everything. He hates alcohol—the only consolation is that it’s _alien_ alcohol, so it’s fine. Or something. “You don’t play D &D.”

There’s a few moments of blissful, comfortable silence as Lance attempts to reorient himself (which ends with Lance half in his lap, and Keith is way too far gone to question _that_ ) before he holds up his hand and says, “You’re a quiznaking nerd.”

“Still not the right way to use it,” Keith counters, a knee-jerk response to Lance’s terrible articulation. It earns him a slap on his bad knee, drawing a hiss of pain through the numbing, and he bites out, “ _Dude_ , watch yourself.”

“You can’t just…” He waves his hand, motioning towards space, the ceiling, or both, and Keith gives him points for trying. “… _roll_ a critical and win. There’s _rules_. Like the fact that Zarlon—“

“Zarkon.”

“ _Zarkon_ has a freaking _wizard_.”

“He does.” Keith blinks, eyes narrowing at nothing in particular. “We’re so fucked, Lance.”

A few more minutes pass in silence, Keith occasionally rubbing at his nose while Lance hiccups next to him, and the view outside the window… doesn’t really change. Still very starry, still made of space and constellations and faraway planets, but there’s something about the alcohol in his system that gives him a new appreciation for being so far out in the universe. They’re responsible for _all_ of this; they are what’s standing between a genocidal, insane alien and the rest of the unknown, endless expanse of space. The _entire fucking universe_. It’s almost enough to sober him up. Almost.

“D’you think Zarkon gets drunk?” Lance asks quietly, attempting to poke Keith in the ribs. He ends up slapping Keith in the face, so Keith shoves Lance off him in retaliation. “ _Ow_ , you… _you are_ —“

He slips into Spanish and Keith stops listening, focuses more on the way Lance’s mouth moves around the foreign words, the flush of his tongue when it darts out to lick dry lips and wow, he’s had way too much to drink and Shiro is going to kill them both. The thought is oddly comforting when he realizes exactly why he’s focusing on Lance’s mouth.

“Dude,” Keith tells him, incredibly serious, and Lance shuts up for a moment to stare at him with the most dumbstruck expression Keith has ever seen. “Shhhhh.”

Lance says, “What the fuck,” and Keith kisses him.

“ _Mmrpff_ ,” is the response he gets, Keith questioning his sanity for half a second, but then Lance is kissing him back and there are hands in his hair and all he can taste is the alcohol and Lance and what he thinks might be the lemon-flavoured goo from earlier. It’s mildly offensive, an assault to his taste buds, but Lance is also very, very warm, very responsive, and very thorough. Not bad, considering Keith has no idea what the fuck he’s doing, has only seen it in the hallways during his foray at the Garrison between love-struck students. He has no idea what to do with his hands. Or his tongue. Or the rest of his body, honestly, but Lance isn’t pulling away, so there’s that.

When they do finally part, both a little more drunk than they were ten minutes ago, Keith tells him, “I hate lemon.”

“You kissed me!” Lance exclaims, tugging a bit at Keith’s hair; it’s not entirely unpleasant, so he lets it slide. “You… dude, you just kissed me.”

“I did.” He licks his lips, narrows his eyes. “I think.”

“Oh my god?”

“No,” Keith mutters, confused and somewhat sore now that the alcohol is beginning to work its way through his system. “Keith.”

“Oh my god!”

“Shhh,” he tries again, waving a hand in front of Lance’s face, who’s doing a spectacular job of looking like a confused, dying fish. It’s deeply unsettling. “Just. Shut up. Stop.”

Lance slaps his hands against his mouth, shaking his head, and Keith can’t help but wonder if this his fault, if maybe he’s been reading Lance wrong this whole time—sober or not—because he just broke his teammate and Pidge isn’t around to fix him. He’d take Hunk even, or Shiro, anyone to put Lance back together, but then Lance is waving his hands again, words struggling to escape his lips as he stares down Keith.

“I…” he begins, grabbing Keith’s face in his hands and pressing his nose against his own. Keith blinks. “I’ve _deflowered_ you.”

Keith decides _fuck it_ and pushes him to the floor anyway.

Unfortunately, Lance’s grip is strong even when deeply inebriated, and Keith goes tumbling to the floor with his victim; he ends up sprawled over Lance, a knee in his ribs and his foot stuck under Lance’s left leg, a heartbeat thrumming under his own, and Lance seems to still be struggling with what’s just transpired. He vaguely wishes he had more of the alien alcohol, yet he doubts Coran won’t notice that a quarter of his stash has gone missing. Who even stocks a ship with alcohol?

“I think we’re drunk,” he says, resting his head against Lance’s chest. Lance hiccups again. “Who thought this was a good idea?”

“Heavy,” Lance mutters, though the arms suddenly draping themselves over the curve of his spine argues the point. “Spend more time with the—the… stupid. Robot. Thing.”

“Dummy,” he corrects, which earns him a slap against the back of his head, and he curses before explaining, “ _Training_ dummy, you dummy.”

“Oh.” Lance giggles. _Giggles_. Keith buries his face in the other pilot’s shirt, ends up with a mouthful of Lance’s scent, the sweetness of the detergent. “Fuuuuuuuuudge, we’re so dead. Shiro’s gonna kill us dead.”

Keith shrugs, though it’s awkward and difficult in his current position. Lance mumbles something under his breath that Keith doesn’t understand, so he chooses to ignore it and close his eyes, the hands crawling up and down his spine doing a fantastic job at lulling him into something akin to sleep. Whatever Lance is to him at the moment, the only thing Keith can think is _safe_ , whole and real and warm underneath him. Alive. It’s the most Keith has felt in a long, long time.

“You’re gonna fall asleep, aren’t you,” Lance states. Keith nods. There’s a huff of laughter against the top of his head, fingers carding through his hair, and Keith refuses to acknowledge the noise that slips past his lips at the comfort. “Move your knee, at least. My ribs are crying.”

“’k,” he mutters, shifting a bit until Lance is satisfied with the new position. He can’t imagine the floor is very comfortable, but that’s not his problem at the moment. “G’night.”

“You suck,” Lance tells him. He also scratches lightly at Keith’s scalp, an incredible contradiction. His voice is quieter when he mumbles, “Have you ever… you know. Kissed. Someone.”

Keith thinks about it for a few minutes, realizing after a couple of heartbeats that he’s yet to answer out loud, and says, “Yeah. You. S’fine. Tastes gross, though.”

“Terrible,” Lance agrees. “I’ll have to eat lemon stuff more often.”

“You do and I’ll never kiss you again,” Keith threatens, wrinkling his nose, and he wants to look up at Lance, wants to maybe press a kiss to the underside of his jaw, the side of his neck, but he can barely open his eyes. “Probably have space cooties.”

Lance groans, tugs at Keith’s hair. There’s amusement and fond exasperation slurred with the alcohol in his veins when he mutters, “Freakin’ crit right into my space.”

Keith is already sound asleep.

//

Shiro finds them in the semi-morning, drooling on each other and completely out, and he has Pidge snap a photo before grabbing a blanket and draping it over the two boys on the floor.

“It only took an entire bottle of Altean alcohol,” Pidge points out, head tilted, and Shiro laughs. “They’ll feel _that_ in a few hours.”

“I suppose we should do damage control,” Shiro offers. Pidge shrugs, wordlessly showing the picture to Hunk when walks in, and Hunk’s grin is positively _gleeful_.

“Oh man,” he says, shaking his head. “Lance is gonna _flip_.”

“Keith too,” Pidge replies. “Do you think we should show Allura?”

There’s a moment of silence, the three of them contemplating the fallout from such an endeavor, before:

“Yes,” Shiro says, ever the voice of reason. “Absolutely.”

Lance’s snore is the only response.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/windsprout)


End file.
